Arthur Ripstein's lectures focus on the two bodies of rules governing war: the jus ad bellum, which regulates resort to armed force, and the jus in bello, which sets forth rules governing the conduct of armed force and applies equally to all parties. Ripstein argues that recognizing both sets of rules as distinctive prohibitions, rather than as permissions, can reconcile the supposed tension between them. He contends that the law and morality of war are in fact aligned, b...

The past two decades have seen renewed scholarly and popular interest in the law and morality of war. Positions that originated in the late Middle Ages through the seventeenth century have received more sophisticated philosophical elaboration. Although many contemporary writers appeal to ideas drawn from Kant's moral philosophy, his explicit discussions of war have not yet been brought into their proper place in these debates. Ripstein argues that a special morality governs war because of ...

Tort law recognizes the many ways one person wrongs another. Arthur Ripstein brings coherence to torts’ diversity in a philosophically grounded, analytically powerful theory. He shows that all torts violate the basic moral idea that each person is in charge of his or her own person and property, and never in charge of another’s person or property.

A waiter spills hot coffee on a customer. A person walks on another person’s land. A moored boat damages a dock during a storm. A frustrated neighbor bangs on the wall. A reputation is ruined by a mistaken news report. Although the details vary, the law recognizes all of these as torts, different ways in which one person wrongs another. Tort law can seem puzzling: sometimes people are made to pay damages when they are barely or not at fault, while at other times serious losses go uncompens...

This reader introduces students of philosophy and politics to the contemporary critical literature on the classical social contract theorists: Thomas Hobbes (1599-1697), John Locke (1632-1704), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Twelve thoughtfully selected essays guide students through the texts, familiarizing them with key elements of the theory, while at the same time introducing them to current scholarly controversies. A bibliography of additional work is provided. The classical so...

Markets are thought of by some as liberating the individual. Rather than a feudal system in which each is assigned a role or tasks by an authority, each is free to make decisions concerning how to use their resources and direct their productive activities in light of market prices for goods and services. These prices are not dictated but reflect the preferences of individuals, aggregated by an invisible hand. In this posthumous work, political philosopher Waheed Hussain argues that this wa...

Kant casts a long shadow over contemporary debates in political philosophy. The Kantian roots of ideas of dignity, autonomy, equality and freedom under law are widely acknowledged. Kant’s own developments of those ideas in his explicitly political writings are taken up less frequently. The aim of this volume is to help bring those contributions out of the shadows. The articles and essays explore various dimensions of Kant’s complex and powerful picture of the relation between morality and ...